US raps India's tough stand in draft telecom security policy

KOLKATA/BARCELONA: The US has criticised India's tough stand in its draft telecom security policy and demanded a review of the clauses that can hurt businesses of American companies. It has objected to a provision in the upcoming security framework that at least 50% of all 'core telecom network equipment' be indigenously developed or manufactured.

US Assistant Trade Representative (south & central Asia) Michael J Delaney claimed in a letter to the telecom department, reviewed by ET, that it is not pragmatic to create the entire supply chain of telecom gear in India, given the globalised nature of the industry.

"With the growing scale of a globally distributed and complex supply chain with interconnected sets of organisations, people, processes, services, products and components, it is not practical to assume the eventual establishment of an entire supply chain of ICT products in India," the US trade envoy wrote in an internal note to the department's security wing chief Ram Narain.

The US is also at odds with India's policy of securing commercial telecom networks through its local manufacturing drive as it believes imported telecom gear is not antithetical to maintenance of a secure network.

It has also demanded clarity on India's insistence that mobile phone companies be allowed to induct hardware and software only from 'trusted sources', a list of which will be complied by the telecom department. India had recommended this to secure the country's mobile networks, which are the second largest in the world after China.

The US has further objected to the new rules mandating that all core hardware required for the telecom network be installed only after certification in India, arguing that global certification standards must also be taken into account.

"The implicit suggestion in the draft policy that (global) equipment vendors would need to have products tested in India presupposes erroneously, in our view, the inability of meeting India's security objectives with products tested outside India," noted Delaney.

Calling for the development of global standards on network security, instead of a patchwork of country-specific norms, the US wants India to embrace proven industry-led approaches for developing standards in other countries. "National standards do not advance security objectives better than international standards that have already been subject to critical review," said the US envoy in an internal note to the telecom department.

The new policy is tipped to address India's concerns regarding 15 forms of communications, including Google's Gmail, Research in Motion's BlackBerry services, Nokia's email offerings and Microsoft Skype, among others, which cannot be tracked by enforcement agencies here on a real-time basis.